T1 Tenor

The highlight of a fairly lousy day were the lovely pancakes that I cooked when I got home. Being low in carbs, I could eat loads of them without fear of affecting my blood glucose levels too much. The day was rubbish, not because of my diabetes, but because we made some mistakes at work, one of which was totally my fault, which has resulted in us having to reprint some work. I was really annoyed, but it is done now. Also attentions have now started to focus on our house extension. The planning application was registered yesterday and we had the full quote from our builder today. It is a bit daunting, but it will be worth it. Still got issues with the sewer that runs near our property. Need to find out exactly where it is before we start work.

The Good Hope Hospital is my local hospital; what a great name for a hospital! I am spending increasingly large amounts of time there. However the service recently has been exceptional. Today as I mentioned yesterday was Josh's visit to the opthalmologist. Whilst she couldn't tell us much, she did confirm that he has nystagmus. She gave us some leaflets. Whilst the condition has a broad spectrum of outcomes, it does seem that his vision will at best be restricted and could be virtually non-existant. She was positive that his nystagmus (quivering of eyes) had settled a bit, but this is a condition that cannot be cured and always causes visual difficulties. He responds to bright lights, so has some vision. His next appointment is in the summer as then he will be old enough to have the full gamut of tests including electrical tests to test the optic nerve. It is going to be a long wait. Had a good day apart from that. As it is Shrove (Fat) Tuesday tomorrow had pancakes ...

Felt really spring-like today, managed to get out in the garden and do some tidying. We have a lovely garden, but it is going to take lots of work. Took the old bean poles out and Abby & Claire cleared up some twigs and leaves. Luckily we have our monthly garden refuse collection tomorrow. Pumped up the tyres on our bikes too. I have resolved to cycle to work in the near future. It is only about 2 miles and this afternoon we did a recce to find the best route. It turns out there is a canal that you can get to on backroads from here that goes right past work. We had a walk with the double-buggy this afternoon along the canal and made it as far as Halfords, where we bought a new saddle and some lights. Have no idea how to fit the saddle to the bike, so may have to take it back as I am not sure it is compatible. Cooked another curry tonight. Garam Massala seems to be a key ingredient and once formed part of a lovel curry. Will continue to experiment with recipes. Each day t...

Had a really nice day today. Woke up to good levels again (4.3) and levels have remained under 10 all day. As it was a good day weatherwise, decided to go and visit a city we hadn't visited before - Lichfield. The main driver for this was because we had been looking for rice syrup and pear and apple spread that were in a recipe in a diabetes cookbook for flapjacks. We had heard that there was a good Waitrose in Lichfield. In fact it was an excellent Waitrose. We have a joke in our family that you can't get out of Waitrose without spending at least £40. We spent £39 today! The produce is just so much better than the normal supermarkets and the variety is great. We'll have to come back here for treats. After Waitrose we went into the town. It is a compact town with lots of lovely shops and some nice independents. We went to the cathedral, which is a stunning building. It was 15 years ago that I last visited, singing Mozart's Requiem with the school music societ...

I am trying to make the most of my diabetes. Therefore I have found some ways to take away some of the drudgery of it. Each lunchtime before I take my glucose levels I challenge the other people in the office to guess my level. They ask me about what I have eaten and try to guess. I get to guess too. The person closest gets 10p! I have the advantage of knowing how I feel. So, you'd have thought that I would win. Not a bit of it! I haven't managed to be closest in any of the times we have played it. I hope I get better otherwise I'll have no change left. Other things that brighten it up are my spreadsheets of stock levels and my glucose monitoring graphs. My daughter (2 and a bit) has got right into the procedures I have to go through. She tells me to 'do my blood sugar' then 'do my leg' or my tummy. She won't let me get away with slacking! In fact she doesn't let me get away with any of my bad habits including biting my nails or putting my knife down...

Woke up this morning to blood glucose of 4.2mmol/l for the 3rd day running. Pleased that it is so stable. My experimenting with a hypo didn't go as planned last night. For some reason my levels went back up again without me doing anything. I have heard that this could be because your body counteracts hypos by releasing glucogon which in turn stimulates your cells to release glucose to your bloodstream. This doesn't happen in all cases, but it was interesting to feel nevertheless. Levels have been lower today than usual as I didn't have cereal for breakfast. Had yoghurt instead. I have found some nice low fat, low sugar yoghurts (Muller lite) that actually have bits of fruit in them. Food seems so sanitised that actually finding yoghurt that isn't totally smooth is quite difficult. Found out that peanuts are OK for diabetics as they don't have much carbohydrate in them. Have to be careful of the fat content. Anyone who has set fire to a peanut in a chemistry ...

A really busy 24 hours, with little time to think about my diabetes. As I said yesterday, it was the church men's night at the pub last night. This went off well and I met some interesting people. It will also mean that on Sunday, I will recognise a few more people. Unfortunately, the evening was taken over rather by work. I didn't get away from work until 19:00 and then was back in from 22:00 until 00:15. It was all because a customer had contacted me at lunchtime and asked that we print a job for him to be delivered by lunctime today and that he would like to print with us for at least 6 months. Needless to say I pulled out all the stops, the team did a great job and I think we have a happy customer. Of course today was/is St Valentine's day. I got a nice heart card from my daughter and a box of diabetic chocolates (Thorntons) from my wife. Although the latter are not meant to be that beneficial, I am eating them in moderation and they taste pretty good. Below is the rece...